A horizontal lighbox enclosed by a wide, black molded frame in which Kara Walker's signature silhouettes are encased in linen and lit from behind. Silhouettes represent four figures: a man and child at viewer's left, two women at right.

Subject Matter

An example of Kara Walker's black cut paper silhouettes, here seen backlit within a large, framed lightbox, that engage viewers in a voyeuristic journey through unspeakable images taken from Walker's take on the Antebellum South. The four central figures, an Anglo American male at left, a child and two females -- all African American -- are engaged in power struggles that evoke both racial domination and struggle as well as sexual engagement and abuse. Visual tension is created by the disparity between the pristinely beautiful silhouettes and the atrocities their interactions represent.